That lost magical Chorlton playground ... a man called Gabbott .... and the Curnon Steam Meter

 For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by a patch of land just a little to the north of Chorlton Brook.

That assemblage of old buildings, circa 1990s

Long after the Barlow Moor Road side had been developed with the cinema, a factory and a row of houses it stubbornly refused to be developed.

Instead, it remained a collection of wooden buildings which by the 1970s had become overgrown and were a mecca for kids who were drawn to the isolated spot as much as for the potential for adventures by the brook.

And as if to signal its presence there was at the entrance an old petrol pump.

Even more odd was that it was reached by walking up Claude Road and was positioned at that point where the road does a right turn, heading west, and then south into the Ville.

Claude Road, 1969

Over the years I picked up the stories from people who played there and wondered with the occupants of 45 or 47 Claude Road which stan either side of the entrance had any knowledge of its history, its use or its owner.

And then sometime in the 1990s the site was cleared, and a row of town houses were built with the un Chorlton name of Rainbow Close.

I always assumed they had been workshops but never pursued the story until this week when Doreen and Rob Lizar lent me a series of pictures they had taken of the buildings, before and during their demolition along with the name of the man who owned the land.  This was a Mr. Gabbot who owned and rented out no. 45 Claude Road which ran along the north site of plot.

Rainbow Close, circa 1990s

The pictures are of course a fascinating piece of our history for a set of buildings which will soon fade from living memory.

But added to the photographs was a trade card for Curnon Engineering Co, at Claude Road Works Chorlton cum Hardy, featuring the Curnon Steam Meter.

And a search of the record brought up that “Curnon Engineering was started by Edgar Parr Gabbott and his grandson is still about. Chas Cook made the steam meter for Curnon while Mr Gabbott was away in France during the First World War but the arrangement seems to have continued until the 1940s”.*

To which that go to guide for all things industrial and machine, Graces Guide to British Industrial History offers up pictures of the machine, a poster, and two addresses for what I assume were the offices of the company. In 1911 these were at 5 John Dalton Street and in 1913 185 Princess Street.**

Curnon Steam Meter, undated

And from the two sites I now know that a Curnon Steam Meter, recorded “accurately the flow of steam in any size of pipe, under any conditions of working, at any degree of superheat, without causing any throttling or necessitating any disturbance of the pipe-line” and was proudly advertised as a British Made Steam Meter”.***

Curnon trade directory, undated

Their offices at 5 John Dalton Street were in the impressive Queens Chambers on the corner of Deansgate.  

It is still there and back in 1911 housed 38 companies and societies over 4 floors, including solicitors, estate agents, accountants and industrial businesses, with the Manchester Sunday School Union, the Manchester & Salford Women’s Trade and Labour Council one of whose secretaries was Miss. Eva Gore-Booth and the National Industrial and Professional Women’s Suffrage Society.

Oddly Curnon are not listed in the trade directory for 1911, and so may have moved in during the course of the year.

This makes sense given that they were according to the trade card established in 1910.

As yet despite a search of company records, I can’t find a clue to when they closed down although thee is a suggestion of 1940s. 

But Rob and Doreen remembered Mr. Gabbott who on a whim would take out his red sports car and drive around Chorlton.

Tracking him down proved relatively easy.  He was born in 1886, and in 1911 described himself as an “Engineering Agent, Scientific Apparatus” and was self-employed.  Having lived in Withington by 1921 he was living with his aged parents at 45 Claude Road, listing his occupation as “Inventor and Maker of Stream Meters and Recording Instrument”.

That pump, 1972

Now sometime in the 1920s the offices for Curnon Engineering are listed at 45 Claude Road, with the earliest date I can find as 1925.

And I can also date the house to sometime between 1900 and 1903 which I think means he will have established the Claude Road Works no earlier than 1903 and no later than the early 1920s.

He died in Sale in 1970 at 16 Beaufort Avenue, leaving £12629, although it is unclear who to.

I wonder if his “Small General Engineering Business” which he described the firm on the 1939 Register was turned over to war essential work but that may be a search too far.

By the 1960s my friend Ann was sketching the site and recorded that at least one of the buildings had been taken over by the Park Motor Company offering up another line of research.

And there may even be people out there who can help with when Mr. Gabbot’s firm closed down.

We shall see.

The Park Motor Co, 1960

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; before, during and after the demolition of the former Curnon Engineering Company’s buildings, circa 1900 and the trade card for Curnon Engineering Co, undated, from the collection of Rob and Doreen Lizar, Claude Road, 1969,  Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY , street furniture on Claude Road, 1972, m58833, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pas and Park Motor Company, circa 1960 courtesy of Ann Love

* Curnon Engineering Co, https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp147507/curnon-engineering-company

**Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Curnon_Steam_Meter_Co

*** Poster for the Curnon Steam Meter, 1913, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History from Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History

It’s how we did it ……… 1962 …… and a heap of adverts

Anyone who can remember the Colgate advert in the block of ice will know that adverts can date, and is a reminder of how they did things very differently in the past.

In some cases, it is the presentation of the advert, and in others it’s the underlying assumptions which in the 1960s just assumed that housework, cooking and being worried about your children was the preserve of women, and that anyone who was not English was open to be portrayed as a stereotype.

And so, with that in mind here are a collection of adverts from 1962.

Some are those big ones which required a man, a ladder, and a pot of paste, and came in parts, which had to be aligned perfectly.

Today those same hoardings are delivered electronically and change every few minutes.

And then there were the smaller ones, often advertising a newspaper or magazine which were changed daily.

All of which leads me to this collection.  

I have no idea where the pictures were taken but the presence of open spaces would suggest a part of the city undergoing a clearance programme or may be  just some of the bits Mr. Hitler’s bombs did for.

Either way the adverts are fascinating, not least because of the prices advertised, and also the stories being run in the newspapers, which included  a suspense serial in Reveille, entitled “No Chance In Hell” and “A girl called Johnnie, 20 Days in an Open Boat” from the Sunday Express.”

Reveille for those who don’t know was a popular weekly tabloid, which was launched in 1940 as the official newspaper of the Ex-Services’ Allied  Association, and after it was bought by the Mirror Group in 1947 settled into presenting light news story with an emphasis on entertainment.

And I suppose the fun will be to spot those brands and newspapers which are no longer with us, while for the eagled eyed reader there will be the surprising discovery that nearly 60 years ago we were just as likely to discard our litter as we do today.

Added to which as the shop next to the newsagents will testify, this was still a time when something broke you asked someone to mend it, rather than go off and buy new.

Finally there is the question of just where we were back in 1962.  

Enlarging the street sign above the newsagents offers up a number of possibilities, but all seem to fall by the wayside, as this was a road not a street and the listings in the directories show nothing that fits.

But then someone will know and come up with the answer.

Well I hope so.

And John Casey responded with "Rochdale Rd. My old area, moved out in 1963 as part of the slum clearance. The hoardings were erecred about 1958".

Location; Manchester

Pictures,  advertising in 1962, Manchester, 1962 -3554.1 and 1962 -3554.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

In Well Hall in the April of 1851

History is messy and rarely fits with that neat simplistic model we were taught at school. 

So take for example that idea that people rarely travelled and that most of us would have lived our life in the same village amongst the same people in communities that pretty much stayed the same.

Well even before the 19th century I doubt that this was completely accurate, and certainly by the middle decades of that century people were on the move and Well Hall was no exception.

Had you walked Well Hall Lane in the spring of 1851 you would have heard accents from all over the south and east of England mixed with some from the far west and north as well as Ireland.

Look closely at the 1851 census and there is evidence that while a parent might have been born in Eltham the children were born elsewhere and only later did the family return.

One such couple were George and Francis Cooper.  In 1851 he was 42 and she was 36 and they had been in New York.

I don’t suppose we will get to know why they went to America or why they returned.  But the fact that they did is evidenced by their children two of whom were born in New York in 1839 and 1842.

Perhaps the clue is in the fact that George described himself as a servant so perhaps they crossed the Atlantic with an employer.  Either way they were back here in Greenwich by 1844 for the birth of their third child and there they still were in 1849.

They were both from Surrey and were part of the 30% of Well Hall residents who had not been born in Eltham.  Now most of this 30% were from Kent, but that still left others who were from as far away as Yorkshire and Ireland.

Part of the explanation was that those who employed domestic servants preferred not to use locals for no one wanted the secrets of the household to become the gossip of the neighbourhood which explains why none of the vicar’s six servants were from Eltham.

But in other ways Well Hall was typical of a small rural community.  Most of the workforce was engaged in agriculture either as labourers or in trades related to farming and these included four blacksmiths and two bailiffs.

And there is much more but that as they say is for another time.

Location;Well Hall, London

Pictures; Tudor Barn, Well Hall courtesy of Scott MacDonald, and data from the 1851 census, Enu 1b, Eltham Kent

Some history …. a bit of fiction …. heaps of music …. and a smash of art …… Chorlton Arts Festival today …. for 14 days*

It’s our arts festival back for its 24th year and as I do, I whizzed through the programme and chose some of the events that I will be going to.

So here in no particular order are the authors, historians, artists and musicians I will be enjoying.  Of course there are other authors, historians, artists and musicians and I will be taking a second dibs as the fortnight progresses.

First there is Juliette Tomlinson “writer of ‘Longford’ and ‘Sunnyside: The story continues’" on Wednesday May 13th at the Beagle on Barlow Moor Road between 7 & 9pm.  

Juliette is engaged in a trilogy of books focusing on John and Enriqueta Ryland.  The first was Longford which came out in 2024, and the second Sunnyside has just been published.

And while the books are fiction, they are based on endless hours of meticulous research and are rooted in the history of Manchester, Stretford and Altrincham.

Which seems the perfect point to advertise the story of the Arts Festival which is another in those historical presentations by me and my artist chum Peter Topping on May 12th in the community room of Chorlton Library on Manchester Road.

It fits well with Danielle Lowry’s "Time Threads  … a collaborative project presenting imag
ined encounters with ancestors, [which is an all-day event] inviting visitors to contribute personal stories” at Chorlton Library on Friday and Saturday of May 8th and 9th.

It is followed up by “Family History Research – Talk and Tips” which is a drop in with Mark Burton and Danielle Lowry on Saturday May 16th between 2 and 5 pm and is also at Chorlton Library.

And given that I have already mentioned Peter Topping I will be taking some light refreshments in the Tutku Café on Barlow Moor Road and viewing his Paintings from Pictures exhibition from Friday May 8th to Sunday, and sitting with a cake later on the same day at Mary and Archie on Manchester Road to look at the “Photographs of folk dance , folk musicians and folk traditions by a real life folkie”. 

Which blends nicely into “Baroque: History and Bagpipes with Baroque Giants’ Peter Paul Rubens and JS Bach by Steve Millward, plus Michael Billington talk and play with bagpipes ‘Everything but the Highlands -Bagpipes of the world and influence on classical music" Chorlton Methodist Church, on Sunday May 17th from 2 till 5.

Along with the Ordsall Acapella Singers from Salford in the Wilbraham St Ninian’s Church on Saturday May 9th for an hour at 3pm, concluding with Chorlton Sings  the “50 strong modern pop choir based in Chorlton, an all-inclusive friendly group that loves singing together at Benito Lounge on Wednesday May 20th".

Leaving me just time to visit “The Stories of Our Lives – writing by members of a writing and storytelling community group with an opportunity for audience interaction” at Chorlton Library on Saturday May 16th from 11 to 12.30pm”, and “The Next Thing about being a West fan, a photographic exhibition which follows the unique fan base of West Didsbury and Chorlton AFC during the 2025-26 season” by Jim Doxford in their club house at the end of Brookburn Road between May 13th and 14th.

Location Chorlton

Pictures; covers of Longford and Sunnyside, courtesy of Juliette Tomlinson and the rest from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Chorlton Arts Festival, https://chorltonartsfestival.org/

The image that defined the North

And not just the north but of working class communities across the country.

This scene is, I think Lower Byrom Street, but I could be wrong.

Location, Manchester, 1963

Picture; on the step, Manchester, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

In one of the six Alms Houses on Eltham High Street in 1851

The Alms Houses in 1909

For many of us the Workhouse with its stigma and the horrors that went with being shut up behind its grim walls is just a few generations away.

In my case it was my great grandmother who in 1902 gave birth to her last child in the Derby Workhouse Infirmary, and there after it was the Guardians of that place who kept a watching eye on my grandfather and his siblings while they grew up in various homes.

And it was these self same Guardians who placed great uncle Jack with a blacksmith to learn a trade, great aunt Dolly in service in Northumberland, grandfather in a Naval reformatory school and gave great Uncle Roger the choice of the same boot camp or a new start in Canada as a British Home Child.

Now the Workhouse has always been a refuge of the poor, and long before the 1834 Poor Law and the creation of the Poor Law Bastilles, seeking help from the parish was  accepted as one of the strategies most working families fell back on when times got hard.

But after 1834 the price was high, with families being separated on admission and at the mercy of petty regulations which reinforced the shame of poverty.

And of course it was the old who more than most would come to rely on the institution, often warn out after a life time of struggle and hard work with the prospect of their last few years separated from loved ones and the prospect of a pauper’s grave at the end.

And if it wasn’t the Workhouse or some other form of parish relief then it might have been a charity.

The Alms Houses numbered 224, in 1853

Like as not in Eltham this might have been one of the six alms houses in the High Street which had been built by Thomas Philipot in 1694 at a cost of £302 on part of a field called Blunt’s Croft.

They consisted of two rooms, one above the other, a wash-house and a small garden.  The average age of those living there in 1851 was 86 with Sarah Glazebrook at 84 and Elizabeth Blackman aged 62.

I suppose I should also have included Mary Inson who was a mere babe at 53 but she described herself as a lodger and I rather think cannot strictly be included.

Now a lot more research needs to be done to track all eight back across the years in Eltham.  None had been born here but I suspect all had passed most of their lives in the place.

Some at least I know, like old Thomas Foster who had been one of the blacksmiths.   His smithy stood to the west of Sun Yard nearer to the lane and was one of the features of the High Street.*

He was originally from Carlisle but was in Eltham by 1819 when his son was attending the first National School.

And in time I will discover more about  his wife Ann, along with the widows, Jane Rivers, Sarah Glazenbrook, Elizabeth Dean, Mary Fulgar and her lodger the 53 year old Mary Inson and George and Elizabeth Blackman.

I have no way of knowing how hard their lives had been or what struggles they endured in the alms houses or even what support and comfort their families were to them.

So I shall leave them on that spring day in 1851 in their cottages which looked out across the High Street to an empty field and wonder just what gardening Mr Foster did in his small garden behind the meadows.

Location, Eltham, London

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/heating-and-hammering-at-smithy-on.html

Picture; The Alms Houses from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, and detail of the High Street from detail of the land to the north of 1843 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

Living at 523 Barlow Moor Road in the 1940s

I am back with the memories of my friend Ann who grew up in a big house on Barlow Moor Road in the 1940s and 50s.

Her parents ran an undertaker’s business and along with descriptions of the house there are some wonderful insights into the work they did

"Like most houses in the 1940's, there was no central heating, and in winter, the only room which was warm was the kitchen. 

This was heated by the 'Range' a small open fire, which heated an oven, and a top oven for pans, and was covered in dark blue tiles. 

There was a trivet to stand the heavy cast iron kettle, and a coal scuttle which needed refilling several times a day, which meant going down the cellar for buckets of coal.  

Each side of the Range was fitted cupboards, and my Mum had her sewing machine in front of the window. 

She had trained as a dressmaker, and had worked in Manchester making and altering dresses, before she was married, and then had become a housewife’, as women did in 1928. 

She told me she had altered a dress for Tallulah Bankhead, (A famous actress at the time) and that it hadn't been cleaned, and smelt of sweat.

Entertainment at the time was the wireless, or the piano, or having friends round to play cards.

There wasn't a sink in the kitchen, but there was a small room at the side called a scullery, where the washing up was done. We didn't get a washing machine until about 1957, so all washing was done by hand, except for large things, like sheets and tablecloths. 

Our Laundry No was 1971, which incidentally became the year of our marriage.

Each Saturday evening at 5-o-clock, there had to be absolute silence, whilst my Dad checked his football pool results. He won 100 pounds one week, and bought my Mum a fur coat.

The workshop at the side of the house was the only room on ground level – all the other rooms were about 6ft above, and were reached by steps at the front and the back. 

There was a door from the driveway which led to a short passage, one side of which had a glazed partition, with the workshop to one side.

This was where Dad would varnish, or wax polish the coffins. Wax polishing was only done on the more expensive coffins, as it was very time consuming, and required several layers of wax being applied and rubbed in, until my Dad was satisfied with the finish. 

Then my Mum would line the coffins with kapok and taffeta.

When business was quiet, Dad would make spare coffins in different sizes, which could be stored in the cellar. They were stacked against the walls, and were perfect for playing hide and seek when my cousins came over to play.  

The door from the driveway was used for deliveries – we had bread, and meat delivered, once or twice a week.

The bread was from bakers opposite the Lloyds Hotel, but the butcher, called Frank came from  Heaton Mersey.

The internal stairs led up to a short corridor with two doors, one leading to the kitchen, and another, with stained glass panels led to the hallway.

In the hall were two doors which led to the front rooms, and a short passage, with a room under the stairs, called the pantry. This just held all the extra china that we used when we had visitors. 

My father had a box which held a most peculiar implement – he had been on a course to embalm bodies, (preserve them) and the box held a sort of pump to remove the blood and replace it with embalming fluid. I can't remember it ever being used, but it sat on a shelf in the pantry.  

The two front rooms were called the dining room, and the lounge. Just to differentiate them I think.

The lounge was used as a billiard room when I was very young, and had a full sized billiard table, but when my grandfather re-married when I was about seven, it must have been sold. and we used the room in the evenings, and when friends came my mother used to play the piano. I had lessons, but didn't get very far, I was much more interested in drawing.

The 'dining room' was used when people came to make arrangements for funerals. There was a large oak table covered in a brown chenille cloth with a fringe, and a carved oak sideboard.

Dad would take down details of the kind o funeral that was required and organize everything.

From the laying out of the body, the type of coffin, the white gown which covered them, the nameplate and brass handles, contacting a minister to take a service, the cemetery or crematorium for the disposal of the body, hiring of the hearse and cars, bearers to carry the coffin (usually the drivers of the hearse and cars) obituary notices in the newspapers, and finally a meal for those who had travelled a long way, often at the Southern Hotel."

© Ann Love, 2014

Pictures; by Ann Love